For convenience the background below is provided in the context of vehicle occupants. This is not however intended to be limiting and it will be appreciated that further examples could be offered from other fields where achieving privacy may be desirable but challenging (e.g. a shared work or social space). Furthermore it will be appreciated that the disclosures made in this application may be equally applicable to such alternative fields.
It is sometimes desired to provide privacy between occupants of a vehicle. For example when an occupant of the vehicle wishes to make a telephone call it may be preferred, by that occupant at least, that the call be private. Even where the occupant making the call uses headphones or the like, their speech may still be heard by other occupants of the vehicle. It has been known to provide a physical barrier in vehicles, such as between front and rear seat occupants of the vehicle. However this is intrusive and at least partly separates the occupants at all times, even when the barrier may be partly removed, such as lowered. Alternatively, a volume of an audio output from an in-vehicle entertainment system may be increased to obscure the speech, but this may be undesirable for both the occupant making the call and the other occupants.
It is an object of embodiments of the invention to at least mitigate one or more of the problems of the prior art.